Sometimes we obtain what we desire, but not the happiness and contentment we crave. This is the case for Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei. The odd couple, a woman seeking a green card and a gay man in an open relationship seeking a tax credit and his pushy traditional Chinese parents off his back, plan a marriage of convenience. At their wacky New York wedding banquet, a happy-go-lucky and openly erotic mish mash of Chinese and American traditions, Wei-Wei and Wai-Tung discover their souls crave something less tangible than what they first desired.One thing I love about Ang Lee films are the withering looks. Piercing eyes that could bust a bag of bricks at a glance. You'll see a few such glances here. They send shivers down your spine. The looks are Lee's unique and enthralling brand. They are peppered throughout his films, but sparingly. Another characteristic of Lee, one of my favorite directors, is depth. Do not make the mistake of judging this film by its cheesy cover. Lee has plenty of surprises and emotional shocks up his sleeves. The characters and themes come at you from a variety of perspectives and opposites; young and old, men and women, straight and otherwise, Chinese and American, and more. Another thing Lee is a master at is passion. His characters manage to melt your heart no matter who they are, kind or cruel. Enjoy each scene as it comes, for even at the start of his career, Lee is mesmerizing and magical. Despite the passage of 25 years since this film first emerged and my unabashed awe of Lee, it was my first time seeing this film.

This movie shows you the different between Chinese cultures and western culture in a vivid way.However , I don't like the movie ending

Here Ang Lee makes a film about Chinese identity in the United States and the ostracized place of gay marriage in traditional Asian values. The centerpiece of the film is the wedding reception itself, showcasing a traditional Chinese/Taiwanese wedding between a secretly gay groom and his bride. This is an early-nineties film, so there are a lot of strange purple-ish values to the tones, and the fashions/costumes worn by some of the characters are rather amusingly dated.The plot: Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) is a gay, first-generation American-Chinese living in Manhattan with his lover, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein). Wai-Tung's parents seem to be of traditional Taiwanese stock and are pressuring their son to get married so he can hurry up and provide an heir for them. The problem is that Wai-Tung is an in-the-closet homosexual and is also their only child. At first they try to set him up on blind dates with Chinese girls, so he tells them he has a fiancée. So when they come to visit him, he attempts to hide his homosexuality and arranges a fake wedding with Wei-Wei, a financially troubled female tenant in a building he rents out.The demeanor of the acts notably shift throughout the film. The movie starts out as a somewhat zany, light comedy and then segues into melancholy drama when the conservative Chinese parents test the rigors of the gay son's relationship. But I couldn't really understand Wai-Tung: what did he and Simon do for a living? Where did his (pre-marriage scheme) relationship with Wei-Wei develop from and how does he own her building? Some of this stuff was kinda... too convenient in my mind. But then again, maybe I just haven't seen the movie recently enough. On the surface the film appears to be about gay culture contrasted against Chinese culture, but like a lot of Ang Lee films it is not about what it appears to be. And by this I do not mean his films have some extraordinary depth that we do not initially notice, but that they simply present capable stories within a variety of locales and aesthetics. The main reason I do not think it is realistically about gay/traditional Chinese culture is because of the ending. It feels like a Spielberg film script, and to some degree I believe Ang Lee is the Spielberg of Chinese-American cinema. The film is entertaining, but it has too many moments of unbelievable schmaltz or attempts at cheesy emotional affections.Ang Lee does provide a nice window into Taiwanese culture abroad and raises questions about gay identity in contrast to traditional Asian values. To be honest, I have not seen too many films on the subject (and probably none which can be considered "mainstream") so for this I can give Ang Lee props. It is only really flawed by the convenience of plot details, which makes me suspect the conclusion was completely crafted fiction and not taken from experience or real life.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the production values, much less the acting in the film. And, to a degree, the inter-cultural difficulties that move the plot are sometimes - though, in my opinion, not very often - rather droll. What it lacks utterly is a believable script.First of all, by way of explanation - perhaps - I haven't liked a single film by Ang Lee that I've seen so far (4 now), with the single exception of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, and that had a great deal more to do with Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning screenplay than Lee's direction.I don't know what the "issues" Lee has with homosexuality, as such, might be, but there is simply no question in my mind and experience that the psychology of THE WEDDING BANQUET is flawed right down to the ground. THE central incident that drives the plot forward -- (SPOILER: **i.e., Winston Chao's acquiescing to May Chin's extremely importunate eliciting of a physical relationship** -- ES) -- could only have been written and directed by someone who doesn't have clue one about how virtually any gay man caught up in that kind of situation is going to react. Therefore, I do not think it unfair to opine that the ENTIRE plot is based -- apart from a few cultural quiddities about gay men in a traditional and/or homophobic society coming out -- on a false presumption; accordingly, the whole film becomes an exercise in mere twaddle: If your main plot reversal/complication is based on a psychologically invalid director's "I want it this way," then you have a tremendous flaw right at the heart of the script and -- old but true words -- you don't have a script, no matter how good everything else is, you just don't have a good film! And how can anyone think some gay person, male or female, knuckling under to cultural and tribal traditions and shibboleths is the stuff of comedy??? Literally millions of gay people have been and continue to be forced to compromise their lives and hearts and desires to fit into their cultures; this is scarcely funny; it, far more often, eventuates in emotional exile, mental illness, violence and, not infrequently, great tragedy.EDITORIAL COMMENT/POSSIBLE SPOILER: *This film is THE film that has made me dread Lee's directing BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (not yet released), the short story by Pulitzer winner Annie Proulx. With his clearly demonstrated lack of understanding and/or issues with "gay" sensibilities, I dread it.*